My Class Room

It is long and narrow,

And sits on the fourth floor

Of six flights each

Of eleven vertical concrete steps

The first door on the right

Of a long, dark and dirty hallway

It has a cold cement floor

Dusty, littered and spotted from students spitting

Some of the windowpanes along the north wall are broken

There are holes in the plaster, exposing the bricks underneath

Several rows of exposed fluorescent lights hang above

And the electrical wires dangle exposed

From empty sockets

In the classroom there are forty-six small wooden desks and benches

Crowded together in 8 long rows

Seating forty-six frustrated students

One window near the front was broken out

On a cold December day

The students were all huddled in the back of the class

Their breath visible in the cold air

I brought a piece of plastic and a hammer

We tacked the plastic to the window

So the air would not blow in

After that day the entire class seemed warmer for me